New post, and this one's definitely one of my weirder ones: it's about how most of the tech industry shows symptoms of something that looks like gender dysphoria.
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New post, and this one's definitely one of my weirder ones: it's about how most of the tech industry shows symptoms of something that looks like gender dysphoria.
Carbon Dysphoria | deadSimpleTech
And now the punchline: this depersonalisation, the weird relationship to their bodily existence, inability to enjoy things and an internal void that people constantly try and fill with what they're told they should want... all of these things are very similar to the experience of gender dysphoria.
deadSimpleTech (deadsimpletech.com)
@iris_meredith humanity dysphoria
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New post, and this one's definitely one of my weirder ones: it's about how most of the tech industry shows symptoms of something that looks like gender dysphoria.
Carbon Dysphoria | deadSimpleTech
And now the punchline: this depersonalisation, the weird relationship to their bodily existence, inability to enjoy things and an internal void that people constantly try and fill with what they're told they should want... all of these things are very similar to the experience of gender dysphoria.
deadSimpleTech (deadsimpletech.com)
@iris_meredith This is brilliant, and very much gives voice to many issues I've been grappling with lately -- and connects them to larger trends in tech.
For me, the issue was not gender dysphoria (I'm fine with my original plumbing), but I still struggled with all the symptoms of dysphoria you mention -- feeling disconnected, not knowing what I wanted, alienation from my body, alienation from my work. Not feeling like *me*.
Turns out there was a critical part of me that I sent away long ago, because there simply wasn't a safe place for it in this world. For various complicated reasons, that part of me strongly identifies as a horse. (Yes, species dysphoria is a thing.) Which makes a lot of sense in your thesis -- horses are deeply embodied and sensous creatures, so it makes sense that part of my soul latched on to it.
The past few months have been all about connecting and celebrating that part of me. Alas, transitioning is off the table, but there are many other outlets that let it shine.
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@iris_meredith This is brilliant, and very much gives voice to many issues I've been grappling with lately -- and connects them to larger trends in tech.
For me, the issue was not gender dysphoria (I'm fine with my original plumbing), but I still struggled with all the symptoms of dysphoria you mention -- feeling disconnected, not knowing what I wanted, alienation from my body, alienation from my work. Not feeling like *me*.
Turns out there was a critical part of me that I sent away long ago, because there simply wasn't a safe place for it in this world. For various complicated reasons, that part of me strongly identifies as a horse. (Yes, species dysphoria is a thing.) Which makes a lot of sense in your thesis -- horses are deeply embodied and sensous creatures, so it makes sense that part of my soul latched on to it.
The past few months have been all about connecting and celebrating that part of me. Alas, transitioning is off the table, but there are many other outlets that let it shine.
@iris_meredith There are two fantasy tropes that I keep coming back to: the Horcrux (from Harry Potter) and Recission (from The Golden Compass).
Both involve a splitting of the soul. In the horcrux, the soul is split to hide part of it away, for survival. In recission, half the soul is destroyed. Both create monsters.
Long ago, I chose the path of the horcrux. I sent half my soul away to go live with the horses, because the other option was recission and soul death. I still remember doing it, too. Soul magic is weird. And I spent the next decade disconnected from myself.
But I'm thankful, too. Because that part of me managed to survive, even if hidden. And now that I've rediscovered it, I've found something else -- that part of me was my heart. Something I was sorely missing. And something that our industry seems to have forgotten.
I love living from my heart. I love feeling it in my chest. I love trusting that it knows what it wants. It's wonderful.
️ -
@iris_meredith I think I meant interoception, not proprioception
@tinybird @iris_meredith i also sometimes get those two things confused and i think that’s because they’re related (awareness of where you are in space requires awareness of what signals your senses are giving you, which manifest as internal bodily sensations)
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New post, and this one's definitely one of my weirder ones: it's about how most of the tech industry shows symptoms of something that looks like gender dysphoria.
Carbon Dysphoria | deadSimpleTech
And now the punchline: this depersonalisation, the weird relationship to their bodily existence, inability to enjoy things and an internal void that people constantly try and fill with what they're told they should want... all of these things are very similar to the experience of gender dysphoria.
deadSimpleTech (deadsimpletech.com)
@iris_meredith This article really captures the feeling that society is just structured to generate a general dysphoria. Just constantly putting everyone in a state of massive discomfort and listlessness. You simply do not get to be who you want to be. Especially in America.
- You are prescribe to drive a car and the values it brings.
- You must find life-long employment in a field you will have minimal chance to leave once selected.
- The career you pick will bring prescribed notions of how you will act
- etc. etc. things you've articulated very well.
Careers are kinda a gender. I felt more or less prescribed to pursue a high-paying respectable job. My parents were super against career tech at my school cause they saw it as the place all the inept went to go straight to a job then fail in life. I choose the IT route over the Digital Design route cause I felt it was The Choice They'd Expect. And then I learned nobody in this field really gives a shit about when I was quiet passionate ._.
My desire has always been to pursue art, but the income simply doesn't exist so I'm stuck at a desk gig that pays vastly better for a fraction of the work and for work I just do not care about and simply perform the motions of.
Also, the segment about "tech works often having literally no interest outside of tech" is so painfully true. It can almost be unnerving when engaged upon en masse.
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@iris_meredith This article really captures the feeling that society is just structured to generate a general dysphoria. Just constantly putting everyone in a state of massive discomfort and listlessness. You simply do not get to be who you want to be. Especially in America.
- You are prescribe to drive a car and the values it brings.
- You must find life-long employment in a field you will have minimal chance to leave once selected.
- The career you pick will bring prescribed notions of how you will act
- etc. etc. things you've articulated very well.
Careers are kinda a gender. I felt more or less prescribed to pursue a high-paying respectable job. My parents were super against career tech at my school cause they saw it as the place all the inept went to go straight to a job then fail in life. I choose the IT route over the Digital Design route cause I felt it was The Choice They'd Expect. And then I learned nobody in this field really gives a shit about when I was quiet passionate ._.
My desire has always been to pursue art, but the income simply doesn't exist so I'm stuck at a desk gig that pays vastly better for a fraction of the work and for work I just do not care about and simply perform the motions of.
Also, the segment about "tech works often having literally no interest outside of tech" is so painfully true. It can almost be unnerving when engaged upon en masse.
@iris_meredith Also, most of my work is erotic arts, which just adds a whole extra wall I depersonalize behind regularly.
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New post, and this one's definitely one of my weirder ones: it's about how most of the tech industry shows symptoms of something that looks like gender dysphoria.
Carbon Dysphoria | deadSimpleTech
And now the punchline: this depersonalisation, the weird relationship to their bodily existence, inability to enjoy things and an internal void that people constantly try and fill with what they're told they should want... all of these things are very similar to the experience of gender dysphoria.
deadSimpleTech (deadsimpletech.com)
Thank you for this perspective!
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New post, and this one's definitely one of my weirder ones: it's about how most of the tech industry shows symptoms of something that looks like gender dysphoria.
Carbon Dysphoria | deadSimpleTech
And now the punchline: this depersonalisation, the weird relationship to their bodily existence, inability to enjoy things and an internal void that people constantly try and fill with what they're told they should want... all of these things are very similar to the experience of gender dysphoria.
deadSimpleTech (deadsimpletech.com)
What is described here sounds very much like the culmination of the very specific flavor of masculinity that was being performed in tech in the 90s.
What myself have described as the "wounded masculinity" of a generation for whom being socially abused for being geeky or nerdy was still very fresh. (Something that, later in life, myself came to recognize as akin to the religious woundedness one encounters at a UU coffee klatch.)
Now that we're the other side of "nerds rule the world", that triumphant enthusiasm having been fully corporatized, all the steam of having proven the bullies wrong having long since been expended, what remains is a performance of masculinity.
Yet a masculinity that is a husk of the wounded masculinity that preceded it. Hollowed out of the deep yearning to prove oneself superior to one's tormentors, leaving only a faint echo in the drive to prove... something, to someone, whatever and whomever that might be.
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New post, and this one's definitely one of my weirder ones: it's about how most of the tech industry shows symptoms of something that looks like gender dysphoria.
Carbon Dysphoria | deadSimpleTech
And now the punchline: this depersonalisation, the weird relationship to their bodily existence, inability to enjoy things and an internal void that people constantly try and fill with what they're told they should want... all of these things are very similar to the experience of gender dysphoria.
deadSimpleTech (deadsimpletech.com)
Thank you for an insightful post.
I have the feeling that most of what you describe can also be traced back to a very deficient educational system.
We don't provide enough diversity, enough culture in education, we do not teach people that curiosity, reading and a life-long desire to know more are desirable. The results are staring at us now...
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What is described here sounds very much like the culmination of the very specific flavor of masculinity that was being performed in tech in the 90s.
What myself have described as the "wounded masculinity" of a generation for whom being socially abused for being geeky or nerdy was still very fresh. (Something that, later in life, myself came to recognize as akin to the religious woundedness one encounters at a UU coffee klatch.)
Now that we're the other side of "nerds rule the world", that triumphant enthusiasm having been fully corporatized, all the steam of having proven the bullies wrong having long since been expended, what remains is a performance of masculinity.
Yet a masculinity that is a husk of the wounded masculinity that preceded it. Hollowed out of the deep yearning to prove oneself superior to one's tormentors, leaving only a faint echo in the drive to prove... something, to someone, whatever and whomever that might be.
Tangentially, thinking there might be some intersection here with Cyberlyra's discussion of the notion, absent in Usian language, of a "keener":
Cyberlyra (@cyberlyra@hachyderm.io)
I have lived in the US for 23 years. This week I used the word "keener" at a meeting and someone interrupted me to ask what that was. I explained it's a Canadian word for someone who's just earnestly enthusiastic, an eager beaver, selflessly just excited about learning stuff and participating. I alwasy thought it was just something we have a cooler word for that they don't -- like toque for beanie, or parkade for 'multi-story parking garage', or garburator for in-sink disposal unit (I mean, come on). But this week I realized--there is no equivalent in the US, for keeners. It's like that thought-language concept about linguistic relativity (no word for orange= can't see orange) except the other way around (no word for it because it is impossible). There is no word for keener in America because you can't be a keener in America. Love learning? You have to display it so you get the top grades and go to Yale and make lots of money as a lawyer. Work hard? Not because you love it but because you don't know any other way to be. Expert about something? You gotta hustle and monetize with YouTube videos else you're not an expert and also you can't afford to send your kids to college. Love music, or dancing? you have to do it eight times a week for a trillion dollars or you can't do it at all. Having elementary school aged children in the US has been eye-opening. It is Lord of the Flies in the classroom and on the playground. Children learn it's a hierarchy, and it's better to be on top, whatever that takes. Seven year olds on investment apps. Constant culture cramming. Playground games where they literally hit each other with sticks. Grabbing others' toys while some teacher you don't pay attention to says something useless about 'sharing' and you eventually turn that into 'an economy.' (1/2)
Hachyderm.io (hachyderm.io)
To wit, doing something for the joy of it, with no other motive, does not compute. Dysphoria as being what cannot be named, let alone bodily embraced.
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New post, and this one's definitely one of my weirder ones: it's about how most of the tech industry shows symptoms of something that looks like gender dysphoria.
Carbon Dysphoria | deadSimpleTech
And now the punchline: this depersonalisation, the weird relationship to their bodily existence, inability to enjoy things and an internal void that people constantly try and fill with what they're told they should want... all of these things are very similar to the experience of gender dysphoria.
deadSimpleTech (deadsimpletech.com)
@iris_meredith It's interesting to see the connections you make, but overall I'd say the inhumanity of the tech industry is due to the capitalist superstructure rather than attributes of information workers.
As a programmer that does think of myself more of a mental being than a body, I can't relate to the ideas that studying complex systems leads to a weaker sense of self or that body disassociation is an indicator for sociopathic violence (cf. heightened sensuality may fuel racial animus).
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New post, and this one's definitely one of my weirder ones: it's about how most of the tech industry shows symptoms of something that looks like gender dysphoria.
Carbon Dysphoria | deadSimpleTech
And now the punchline: this depersonalisation, the weird relationship to their bodily existence, inability to enjoy things and an internal void that people constantly try and fill with what they're told they should want... all of these things are very similar to the experience of gender dysphoria.
deadSimpleTech (deadsimpletech.com)
Very interesting read!
It has me thinking about those ricers who build this elitist culture around hprland (or whichever one is trending) being the superior way to interact with your system, all other DEs are inferior and you're a loser for using them, yadda yadda yadda. Very masculine performing.
But then the other side of this, subculture I guess, is creating beautiful, aesthetic setups. Posting screencaps of your ricing. Getting the colors of the UI to match the wallpaper. Making a custom fastfetch with custom ASCII art and colors. Getting the window animations to smoothly move things across your screen.
It struck me as very feminine. (Or at least culturally feminine.) And it felt weird to me because what these folks are actually doing is so diametrically opposed to the atmosphere they give off. There's a mismatch. I bet many of these ricers would frown at interior design or visual art, dismissing it as womanly, as part of the outside world that doesn't matter. They are artists, but label it as something else to feel distant from it, and I can't imagine that being good for their psyche. I had trouble wrapping my head around this, but your article gave me a new lens to view this through.
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New post, and this one's definitely one of my weirder ones: it's about how most of the tech industry shows symptoms of something that looks like gender dysphoria.
Carbon Dysphoria | deadSimpleTech
And now the punchline: this depersonalisation, the weird relationship to their bodily existence, inability to enjoy things and an internal void that people constantly try and fill with what they're told they should want... all of these things are very similar to the experience of gender dysphoria.
deadSimpleTech (deadsimpletech.com)
@iris_meredith@mastodon.social I don't know that I exactly enjoyed reading this. I most certainly felt it though. I'm lucky enough to feel generally ok in my body, but working in tech certainly creates a feeling that's reminiscent of what you describe.
I spent a good chubk of my adult life in the "disregard for the body" camp, though I did at least bathe regularly. But the concept of purely identifying yourself with your work is frighteningly familliar to me. 10-12 hour workdays where you do what you do without thinking too much about the consequences of it for society or yourself hits a little bittoo hard.
Breaking away from that is difficult. Most tech (especially the one that allows you to earn a living) exists within a hypercapitalistic environment. It felt hypercapitalistic 10 years ago, but damn qe've gone so much further since then.
To top that off you have multiple literal fascist takeovers around the world, which you need to basically ignore. That is for those of us lucky enough to not need to actively colavorate with and aid said takeovers as part of our job. I can't imagine (and hope I never have to) what it's like to have to choose between being employed and not working for neonazi cooks. -
@iris_meredith@mastodon.social I don't know that I exactly enjoyed reading this. I most certainly felt it though. I'm lucky enough to feel generally ok in my body, but working in tech certainly creates a feeling that's reminiscent of what you describe.
I spent a good chubk of my adult life in the "disregard for the body" camp, though I did at least bathe regularly. But the concept of purely identifying yourself with your work is frighteningly familliar to me. 10-12 hour workdays where you do what you do without thinking too much about the consequences of it for society or yourself hits a little bittoo hard.
Breaking away from that is difficult. Most tech (especially the one that allows you to earn a living) exists within a hypercapitalistic environment. It felt hypercapitalistic 10 years ago, but damn qe've gone so much further since then.
To top that off you have multiple literal fascist takeovers around the world, which you need to basically ignore. That is for those of us lucky enough to not need to actively colavorate with and aid said takeovers as part of our job. I can't imagine (and hope I never have to) what it's like to have to choose between being employed and not working for neonazi cooks.@iris_meredith@mastodon.social to be honest, I'm alao not sure how good we techies generally are, to the extent that "techies" can even mean anything beyond "knows how to make compiter go beep-boop".
People in the replies already mentioned this sort of " reactive masculinity" that came from the nerds and geeks ending up on top after it turned out computers can make you money and you can use them.to control people.
When you're ostracized for something you are you could take that trait and turn it into a badge of honor. In theory that's maybe even a healthy way to respond to bullies. But also, if you end up becoming powerful (even mildly, by virtue of something stupid like being part of a made up mew "techie cast") and keep latching on to that trait as ypur singular badge of honor, you become what you described. The "person that's in tech". Not even a " person who codes", or "person who makes hardware", " person who likes math" or whatever. Just a "person in tech". -
@iris_meredith@mastodon.social to be honest, I'm alao not sure how good we techies generally are, to the extent that "techies" can even mean anything beyond "knows how to make compiter go beep-boop".
People in the replies already mentioned this sort of " reactive masculinity" that came from the nerds and geeks ending up on top after it turned out computers can make you money and you can use them.to control people.
When you're ostracized for something you are you could take that trait and turn it into a badge of honor. In theory that's maybe even a healthy way to respond to bullies. But also, if you end up becoming powerful (even mildly, by virtue of something stupid like being part of a made up mew "techie cast") and keep latching on to that trait as ypur singular badge of honor, you become what you described. The "person that's in tech". Not even a " person who codes", or "person who makes hardware", " person who likes math" or whatever. Just a "person in tech".@iris_meredith@mastodon.social maybe (and I apologize for now just going into a reply guy kind of train of thought mode here) that's the crux of it. Tech (capital T) isn't about the tech anymore. It got massively funded, it prooved it's a great tool to exert power and maintain control. That dragged in a bunch of people that only care about the power and control, certainly a lot of ego-driven people. The people who (at least used to) care about the tech (not Tech) are still mostly around. But they (we?) always desperately wanted to be accepted because they (we?) were weird geeks with little to no social circle. So what you described takes place, regardless of ypur motivation you "shut up and code" (sometimes you don't even code as much, depending on where within the wormforce ypu might have ended up), because ypu might have gone in it for the tech, but now that you're part of Tech, everyone says that's a bog deal. You're in a great position for yourself and you need to push through and keep it, regardless of what your motivation might have been initially.
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New post, and this one's definitely one of my weirder ones: it's about how most of the tech industry shows symptoms of something that looks like gender dysphoria.
Carbon Dysphoria | deadSimpleTech
And now the punchline: this depersonalisation, the weird relationship to their bodily existence, inability to enjoy things and an internal void that people constantly try and fill with what they're told they should want... all of these things are very similar to the experience of gender dysphoria.
deadSimpleTech (deadsimpletech.com)
@iris_meredith Wow, this one makes me so glad that I wound up dipping out of programming into being an academic sysadmin, and on top of that I always had outside interests, even if a bunch of them were stereotypical nerd ones. The "sucked into programming work" could have been an alternate me where I wound up being pressured to work long hours and those outside things dropped away.
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New post, and this one's definitely one of my weirder ones: it's about how most of the tech industry shows symptoms of something that looks like gender dysphoria.
Carbon Dysphoria | deadSimpleTech
And now the punchline: this depersonalisation, the weird relationship to their bodily existence, inability to enjoy things and an internal void that people constantly try and fill with what they're told they should want... all of these things are very similar to the experience of gender dysphoria.
deadSimpleTech (deadsimpletech.com)
@iris_meredith heh just today I posted re: "vulnerable among educated and professional people to being taken in by propaganda" (but without making the distinction between software and other engineering)
Val Packett 🧉 (@valpackett@treehouse.systems)
Every time a respected engineer falls into full on A1 boosterism I'm reminded of that time a philosophy professor in university spoke about how cult recruiters go to technical schools and not humanities ones because the technical students are the ones much more likely to rationalize the cult stuff pushed onto them and accept it…
Treehouse Mastodon (social.treehouse.systems)
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New post, and this one's definitely one of my weirder ones: it's about how most of the tech industry shows symptoms of something that looks like gender dysphoria.
Carbon Dysphoria | deadSimpleTech
And now the punchline: this depersonalisation, the weird relationship to their bodily existence, inability to enjoy things and an internal void that people constantly try and fill with what they're told they should want... all of these things are very similar to the experience of gender dysphoria.
deadSimpleTech (deadsimpletech.com)
@iris_meredith
This is utterly fascinating. -
R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
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New post, and this one's definitely one of my weirder ones: it's about how most of the tech industry shows symptoms of something that looks like gender dysphoria.
Carbon Dysphoria | deadSimpleTech
And now the punchline: this depersonalisation, the weird relationship to their bodily existence, inability to enjoy things and an internal void that people constantly try and fill with what they're told they should want... all of these things are very similar to the experience of gender dysphoria.
deadSimpleTech (deadsimpletech.com)
@iris_meredith I think you're onto something here, but I disagree with a basic premise: there's nothing wrong with simply not liking or enjoying food, or sex, or whichever other bodily experiences you pick. (but then I don't consider myself human and take pride in it, so make of that what you will...)
edit: I wrote an extended reply here.
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@iris_meredith I think you're onto something here, but I disagree with a basic premise: there's nothing wrong with simply not liking or enjoying food, or sex, or whichever other bodily experiences you pick. (but then I don't consider myself human and take pride in it, so make of that what you will...)
edit: I wrote an extended reply here.
@whitequark I've given a bit of a longer response myself: in short, I think you're entirely correct on that point and for the fedi audience, it's a somewhat sloppy way of writing. The issue is that writing "disordered relationship with desire" in the abstract lands well with the Bluesky philosophy crowd, but most people find it a bit incomprehensible.
